obregon: stirling beganigging at san lorenzo in 1946, with the archaeologist philip drucker. stirling pugh: and sure enough, ere was a big head, a beautifully carved big head, much finer [and] more ndsome thanhe ones at la venta. obregon: stirling proposed that these enigmatic sculptures wereortraits of prominent individuals in olmec society. mostf the vast site of san lorenzo remains to be explored. new speaker: we now know thathe site cove moran 300 hectares, making it the laest and most complex site in mesoamerica duri the earlyressic orhearlyormati period. obregon: the elite resided on the huge manmade plateau that dominates the site. one house, calle the "red palace," had stone columns and steps and was supplied with war channeled fromeservoirs. ordinary pple may have led in the pm-thatched houses, like some still found there toy. the polation included artisans skilled in specialized crafts. cyphers: we have a lot of evidence for workshop activity here. there are areas where theyorked obdian, green stone and even monuments were worked re. the olmecs stored previously mad

the area to the north of the pyramid, lefirst by stirling in the '40s and later in the 1950s by philip drucker and robert heizer, revealed a ceremonial courtyard encled by hundreds of basalt columns, each weighing close to one ton. burial mou at the north side of thcourt contained a ba tomb for two high-ranking children. theibos hadisintegrate butheir nants ined buried beneath e layers of clay, each of a different color, and several more layers of adobe blocks, was a saic pavement measuring 15 by 20 feet. its green serpentine stones form the slid fa of supertural being. the mosaic rested on top of 28 layers of rough stones, more than 1,000 tons worth, bbrought 150 miles from the mountains near the pacific coast. this was aenormous feat, and three such mosaics were found at the site. few feet beath threni court, a cache of small, typically olmec figures appeared, with almond-aped eyes and bald, elongated heads. as a mark of beauty or status, the skulls of some individuals were deformed in early cldhood when the bones were stilsoft. made of jade, serpentine and granite, these figures seem to ena